When Hobie Brown sustained a spinal injury due to a battle in the Great Game, as the Prowler, he was immediately rushed to a hospital. It was there that an orderly by the name of Rick Lawson discovered that Hobie was carrying a piece of his costume. Finding out Hobie’s address, Lawson broke into his apartment and stole his costume. Lawson then used the costume to commit a series of robberies, most notably breaking into a patient's home and stealing their belongings. Hobie learned that his costume had been stolen and being used to commit robberies and contacted Spider-Man to capture the culprit. During one of Lawson’s robberies he encountered the Vulture, who had mistaken him for the real Prowler. Vulture wanted revenge on the Prowler for foiling his takeover of Bestman Electronics and attacked Lawson. Despite Lawson’s protests that he wasn’t the real Prowler, the Vulture wouldn’t believe him. Luckily Spider-Man found the two villains and intervened in the battle. However the two villains managed to escape from Spider-Man.

When Spider-Man next encountered the Prowler impostor, he found him attacking a construction worker who had fired Lawson from a previous job. Spider-Man again intervened but the Prowler managed to escape once more by diverting Spider-Man’s attention to a girder about to fall on some innocent bystanders. After Spider-Man saved the people he returned to Hobie Brown at the hospital to update him on the situation. Brown told Spider-Man that he had made a list of everybody working in the ER the night he was brought in. He put a check beside the names he thought he could rule out. Spider-Man thanked him and began his search once more. When Spider-Man finally made his way to Lawson’s apartment, he discovered both the Prowler impostor and the Vulture there. As the Prowler was about to escape, Spider-Man webbed him up and attacked the Vulture. However the Vulture managed to gain the upper hand and knocked Spider-Man unconscious. When Spider-Man awoke he saw the Vulture attacking the Prowler. He used his razor sharp wings to slash the Prowler’s chest. At that moment, Spider-Man attacked the Vulture and webbed him up. He then brought Lawson to the hospital and returned the Prowler costume to Hobie. Lawson was sent to jail following his recovery and is presumed to still be there.